Jeune Lune, a Minneapolis-based ensemble widely hailed for their revival of Moliereâ€™s â€œThe Miserâ€™â€™ last year, is famous for casting off on adventures but â€œFigaroâ€™â€™ takes their experimental aesthetic over the top to scoff against the dictates of form. Here Epps and Serrand cleverly stitch together bits of the Figaro narrative from Mozartâ€™s operas (notably â€œThe Marriage of Figaroâ€™â€™) to Beaumarchaisâ€™ trilogy (â€œThe Guilty Motherâ€) but, alas, the marriage of opera and theater does not go happily ever after.

Beaumarchaisâ€™ theatrical frame fits awkwardly over Mozartâ€™s arias. A note of chilly elegance too often seeps into the dramatic segments, which can be off-putting, while the music invokes sheer sonic bliss. This dissonance undermines the glorious eccentricity of this unlikely pairing, which runs through June 8 at Berkeley Rep.

Serrand, who also directs, lets â€œFigaroâ€™â€™ reverberate like an echo as the elderly Count (Serrand), a figure of abject helplessness, twitches like an infant as Figaro, or Fig, (Epps) tends to his every need. As the two old men reminisce, their memories of their lost youth pop into existence right along side them. They remember the count as a dashing young cad (Bradley Greenwald) neglecting his beautiful wife (the luminous Jennifer Baldwin Peden) right up until they both get entangled in a coup-de-tittilation with the flirty rake Cherubino (Christina Baldwin), the apple of Figaroâ€™s eye Susanna (Momoko Tanno) and the title rogue himself (Bryan Boyce).

Unfortunately the musical scenes captivate so entirely, the singers bend the notes with such passion, that it highlights the lack of an emotional connection onstage in between the arias. The opera portions of the evening, despite their technical artifice, have an emotional authenticity that the rest of the staging lacks. Despite Serrandâ€™s exquisite mastery of slapstick, thereâ€™s not quite enough comedy here to buoy the show through its inert patches. When Figaro sits all alone and bemoans his fate, his face magnified onto a video screen, the moment feels a bit indulgent.

Sometimes itâ€™s almost as if this â€œFigaroâ€™â€™ is trying to keep us at armâ€™s length, by backflipping to and fro through time and switching tone and motif on a dime. The contrast between opera and theater, classic narratives and multimedia, can throw the viewer off-balance. And some of the riffs on America, the Dubya jokes and â€œWho Wants to be a Millionaire?â€™â€™ bits, feel out of place.

Still, the wedding of high-tech and high opera has its beauties. Serrand projects the most tender moments onto a gigantic video screen. One startling tableaux after another teases the eye. Almaviva sadly drags his wife the Contessa along on a rose-strewn barge. Susanna hides under the hem of her mistressâ€™ dress. A singerâ€™s mouth arches triumphantly over a note. These images may distract us from the live performers before us but that makes them no less hypnotic.

The camera caresses their faces like a lover, always hovering, always rapt. Itâ€™s an intimacy thatâ€™s hard not to envy in a â€œFigaroâ€™â€™ that too often thwarts our affections.

What constitutes a blockbuster in the film world? A huge, anticipated movie, expensive to produce but also generating borderline obscene box office figures. Well, recent reports say both are true of GTA as well.

GTA IV is the most expensive game of all time, with development costing in the neighborhood of $100,000,000. By comparison Iron Man, the big-budget movie coming out this Thursday, had a budget of an estimated $186,000,000 according to IMDb.

Why would anyone spend that much to produce a game? Because the rewards are worth the financial risk. Bloomberg estimates the first-week sales of GTA IV to be $360,000,000. For the first week. By comparison the highest-grossing movie in American history, Titanic, made $600,779,824 in its entire run.

And people still talk about the gaming industry like it’s a semi-serious diversion for kids and social outcasts…

If you’ve been reluctant to shell out $225.50 for a three-day ticketÂ to the inaugural Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, Aug. 22-24, you’re in luck. One-day tickets for $85 will go on sale tomorrow, May 1, at 10 a.m. at www.sfoutsidelands.comÂ or www.ticketmaster.com.

As regular readers know, I cut waaaay back on comics spending because of my disgust with Marvel’s cyncial and manipulative handling of Captain America and the “Civil War” series. That spared me from getting PO’d over the marriage-dissolving nonsense that occurred with Spider-Man — I never read a word of those issues.

At the same time, I drastically reduced my cable TV bill. I wasn’t getting enough value — certainly not at Comcast’s rates — from a myriad of commercial-stuffed networks with marginal programming.

I’m feeling the pinch of gas prices and other economic pressures just like everybody else. I’m not going to indulge in bad entertainment (there are too many other choices, including exceptional video games). And now DC is going to save me more money. It’s apparently going to engage in some stunt publishing that rivals the Captain America and Spider-Man garbage: Barry Allen, the Silver Age Flash, is returning from the dead, it seems.

Here, on the continuation of this post, is the press release from DC, which contains the story written by the New York Daily News. My objection to bringing back Allen is an extension of the point made by Alan Kistler about the nobility of Allen’s death more than two decades ago. DC is about to cheapen that historic pop-culture event, and I’ll be reacting by buying less of the company’s products (which include a wide range of sometimes expensive comics-based merchandise). Continue Reading →

Attention Stargate fans! While most of the world is playing GTA you can head on over to the Stargate Worlds web site and throw your name in the proverbial hat for an invite to the closed beta. Sign-ups have begun but details are scarce.

While SG-1 and Atlantis were awesome (I know Atlantis is still on the air but I didn’t like the changes, which apparently makes me a shrill and ill-informed lemming) the Richard Dean Anderson vehicle that most deserves an MMO is MacGyver. This may be a good stopgap, though…

The daily line-ups and first artist additions are officially out of the bag for the Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival taking place in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, Earth, on August 22, 23 & 24, 2008.

“Okay your concert review on Paramore and Jimmy Eat World are completely
nonsense. Did you even go to the show? My mom is a music critic and she
loved the show. Your review on this show is whack and lame!”

Please don’t tell my mother (or Patti Compton), but I’ve never been a Neil Diamond fan. Dude just doesn’t do it for me. So sitting through last night’s “American Idol” Top 5 telecast was probably just about as excruciating for me as the Beatles weeks were for Rob Miller. Fortunately, we had some comic relief provided by Paula Abdul, who completely zoned out when she started to judge Jason Castro on two songs when he had only sung ONE. As my editor, Ardua, excitedly e-mailed me: It was the “BEST PAULA MOMENT EVER!” … While we try to recover from a case of hysterical laughter, here are the critiques from our Readers Judging Panel:Continue Reading →

As I continue to play, I’m increasingly perplexed by the praise for the alleged sophistication of the story. Overall, from the stereotypical characters and B movie dialogue to the awkward transitions into pathological violence, there’s almost nothing going on that’s emotionally credible.

Also, the graphics certainly haven’t overcome the classic problem of bland facial expressions. Don’t the lifeless eyes of these characters undermine any hint of humanity?

Amazingly, though, it’s easy for me to disregard all that. The game’s brilliantly sharp digs at American culture, the vividness of Liberty City and the scope of the interactivity — well, it’s masterpiece stuff.

I can’t wait to see how the game — and my opinions about it — continue to evolve over, say, my next 20 hours of playing time.